


Before Death Wakes Us

by hereticalvision



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Afterlife, Character Death, M/M, Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 00:23:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereticalvision/pseuds/hereticalvision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Up there, in the real world, you were shot while you were in the mark's mind.  Up there, in the real world, you are dying.</i>  Arthur and Eames are in love, but not happy. Now, in the place where death and dreaming meet, they have one final chance to relive their memories and confront their mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Death Wakes Us

**Author's Note:**

> "Death is a sleep that ends our dreaming.  
> Oh, that we may be allowed to wake before death wakes us."  
> Petrarch
> 
> Warnings: sexual context, violence, strong language, discussion of canon suicide and suicidal feelings, infidelity, character death.

"You realise this is basically stalking now, Mr Eames?" Arthur said, a tiny curve in the corner of his mouth the only hint of a smile.

Eames stepped through the door, shrugging as nonchalantly as possible. "You need the lift. I need the lift." He reached out to press the already illuminated button for the lobby, leaning across Arthur to do so.

Arthur's gaze could have stopped charging elephants. "My mistake. I thought we were in the middle of a job but you appear to have found time to do… what?" 

Eames tugged at the sleeves of his badly-fitting tweed jacket. "I’m off to a party, actually. Old boyfriend."

Arthur’s lip curled in displeasure. "Should be fun."

"Do you want to come?" Eames said, still looking at his sleeves and not at Arthur.

"Why not?"

Eames looked at him then. "Really?"

"Why not?" Arthur repeated, shifting to face Eames head on. "I’d be delighted to meet your old boyfriend."

Eames shuffled his feet, trying to buy himself some time. "There is no party."

Arthur's face shifted into a smirk. "I know, that's why I said yes." 

Eames managed to meet Arthur's gaze and whatever he saw there encouraged him enough that he stepped forward into Arthur's space. "All right, then, darling," Eames said, his breath hot on Arthur's face. "Why don't we find a nice bar instead, one that serves a selection of fine Scotches." He leaned closer, touching the tip of his nose to Arthur's. 

Arthur never let Eames get this close, precisely because it made him feel the surge of desire he didn’t know how to handle, but now Eames was crowding into him and the wanting rose up in waves. "You can order something twenty years old or so on the rocks and I can call you a properly savage American." Eames leaned further in, moving his mouth towards Arthur’s ear and lowering his voice. Eames' lips grazed Arthur's cheek and Arthur found his eyes fluttering closed against his will. "I’ll drink mine neat and you can let me convince you ever so slowly that what you’d really like is to let me peel off all that expensive menswear and put my hands all over your body."

Arthur’s eyes flew open as Eames began to pull back. He could feel his pulse in every part of his body and his dick, denied for too long, had begun to stir. 

Eames was watching him so Arthur licked his lips deliberately. "You’ll have to work pretty hard to convince me wearing that shirt, Eames."

Eames’ lips curved. "I’d be delighted to remove it for you, of course."

“I walked right into that,” Arthur acknowledged with a wry smile.

Eames reached out and stroked the line of Arthur’s jaw with the tip of one extended finger. "So what’s it to be, darling? Scotch or straight to the removal of shirt?"

Arthur nosed forward just a little, breathing Eames in. "If you hadn’t been so very certain of yourself, I would have slept with you that night, you know."

The light in the elevator flickered.

"What?" Eames said.

"Well, we went to that bar and I let you think you were on to a sure thing but when we got back to the hotel…" Arthur's voice trailed off. "I remember how this night ends. But we’re just starting our night out now."

Eames frowned. "Arthur, are you all right?"

"Where were you really going to go tonight?" Arthur asked.

"What?"

"Where were you going?"

"Nowhere special," Eames said, looking confused. "I thought I would drop by the hotel bar for a pint and then go out and get some goulash or something. We were-"

"On the Hungarian job," Arthur finished, speaking the words precisely as Eames did. "I remember." Arthur could never admit when he was afraid; he swallowed hard instead. "I remember our future," he went on, looking anywhere but at Eames.

"Arthur?" Eames's voice was soft, his hand on Arthur's arm.

"Sorry, I'm just…" Arthur looked at Eames then, his mind filling with a hundred images of things he knew came after this moment, years of sleepy Sunday sex and quiet kisses and bitter arguments and petty slights. He grabbed Eames, kissing him hard, not knowing what else to do. The taste and the scent of him was perfect; Eames was here, was real, but everything else was wrong and Arthur pulled away, turning around to survey the edges of the dream with critical eyes.

"Our first kiss," Eames said, smiling. Then he frowned. "Only it didn't happen here."

"No, it didn't," Arthur agreed. "We must be dreaming."

The light in the elevator died.

***

Searing agony. His gut was on fire, driving him to the floor, everything was pain and blackness and he couldn't even breathe it hurt so much –

Then it stopped.

Eames looked around wildly, trying to catch his breath after the shock of pain.

A simple hallway. Two doors next to one another, one black, one white. No one in sight. No walls, exactly, just a greyish space and these two doors.

Architecture wasn't his field, but if this was his dream, he surely would have been able to do better than this. He placed his hand in his jacket pocket, found the groove in the poker chip which signalled reality.

But this was not a place that could exist. He didn’t know how he’d come to be here, in this impossible place. Just a moment ago he’d been with Arthur but where was Arthur now?

He had to find Arthur. He looked around, trying to peer into the greyish space that surrounded him. Nothing.

Was this his own idea of limbo? Absolutely featureless?

He tried to make himself a gun but nothing happened. A torch? The same.

Eames' jaw clenched. They must be in the mind of someone very well-trained. All right. Time to play the game. Two doors – no other way out.

He considered both for a moment before he reached for the handle on the black door.

It wouldn't open. He frowned, wondering how it could be locked when there wasn’t any sign of a lock. He ran his fingers along the frame and could see no sign of hinges but the door wouldn’t give way no matter how hard he kicked at it.

That just left the white.

Eames swallowed hard. The only thing he could think of to do was what he was being pushed into doing. He didn't like it, but sheer curiosity drove him onward.

He squared his shoulders and walked over to the white door. It was identical to the black in every way but colour: same size and shape, same handle. But this doorknob turned easily.

Eames steeled himself and began to push the door open. Beyond it he could hear something, something almost like music just brushing his consciousness. Almost unthinking, he pushed the door wider, trying to make the noise come in to focus. A cool, inviting breeze brushed past him and he leaned towards it as it faded. There was music in the breeze, too. Eames relaxed; all he had to do was walk through it and all would be well.

All at once a voice from behind him cried, "Eames!"

Eames frowned, turning with his hand still on the door. "Nash?"

Of all the people he'd known, all the projections he might have summoned into life he couldn't think of a single damn reason why he'd have brought Nash here with him.

But there he was, lank hair hanging forward into his face, sleeves too long, just as unkempt as he ever had been. It was strange – for a moment his skin seemed to glow white but then Eames blinked and he looked… normal.

Eames blinked again, wondering why he was having trouble focusing. "What on earth are you doing here?" he couldn't help but ask.

"It's complicated," Nash said with a one-shouldered shrug. Eames took in the details: if this was a forgery job it was a hell of a good one. Nash had never seemed comfortable in his own skin and this person had captured that perfectly. "I suppose you could say it's atonement."

"Atonement?" Eames might have expected to hear any one of a number of answers but that one came as something of a shock. Frustrated, he was forced to admit, "I don't understand."

"I know, but that's not important," Nash said. "You have to come with me now."

Nash's eyes kept darting back and forth between Eames and the door. Catching his gaze, Eames couldn't help but push.

"What if I just…" he opened the door just a little more.

"Eames!" Nash snapped at him, a tone he'd never had the self-confidence to use before. "Eames, if you come with me, I'll take you to Arthur."

At once Eames turned away from the door. "Have you done something to him?" In two strides he was away from the door and right up in Nash's face. "Where is he?"

"Eames, calm down," Nash said, his hands up, placating. "I'll take you to him. I'll take you to him right now."

***

Arthur woke in a hospital room. His head hurt and his muscles ached.

"What happened?" he asked, trying to make the room come into focus.

"You were shot," said a woman's voice. "Don't try to move too quickly."

Arthur shook his head, trying to clear it. "Where am I?"

"You're in Keck Hospital. USC," the woman said. That was right, he could see it now. White everywhere. The steady electronic pulse of a heart rate monitor. Light streaming in through the window so bright it burned his eyes. "You're safe now," the woman said.

Something was nagging at his memory. The softly slurring accent, the musical cadence of the voice.

But wait – Los Angeles? "Where's Eames?" he said.

"I'm not sure. Did you think there was someone else with you?"

"Isn't he here? What happened?" The details of the hospital weren't quite right, Arthur began to notice. It was a perfectly serviceable reproduction but when he looked at the signs on the walls some of the spelling was British; that didn't fit.

"Arthur, please calm down," said the woman, a nurse he could see now, in blue scrubs and a surgical mask.

"How do you know…" Arthur sat up, his whole body protesting as he did so. The nurse crossed the room at once to try and push his shoulders back down.

Seeing his chance, Arthur reached up, tore the surgical mask from her face and saw what he had known he would see. "Mal."

Mal's face revealed shock at first, before she shook her head and took a step back. "I should have known that you'd see right through me." She smiled.

"British English," he explained.

"Ah, yes," Mal mused. "I always did get my spelling confused. But I hardly think you're in a position to judge; how many languages is it you speak again?"

It was exactly the way she'd always teased him. "So I am dreaming," Arthur said.

“Hello Arthur," she said, still smiling at him. "It’s been too long.”

Arthur looked her up and down. “You're not a forgery. No one could get you quite this perfect."

"I'm flattered," Mal said.

"So the question becomes, whose projection are you?” Arthur asked.

Mal smiled wider. “I am no man’s projection, Arthur, I would have thought you’d know that.”

“But you’re dead.”

“All right then, if you're so sure.” Mal didn't seem fazed at all. "Whose projection am I, then?"

Arthur nodded. “You have to be someone's projection, but I know you're not mine. I wouldn't have brought you here, not after what you became to Dom.”

Mal's face dropped and if Arthur hadn't known she couldn't possibly be real he would have thought that he'd hurt her. "Did you stop loving me because of that, too?"

Arthur felt his throat tighten.

Mal nodded. A sad smile crossed her face and she took his hand. "I need you to know," she said, her eyes willing him to believe her, "that all the things that happened after I was gone – everything the Shade did – that was Dom's guilt. That was never me."

She was still so lovely. She smiled and Arthur remembered meeting her for the first time, long before he ever knew Eames. He remembered how lovely she'd always been and how he'd puzzled over what it was she saw in Dom until he'd seen how they fit together like jigsaw pieces, how he'd wished that he and Eames would fit together that easily. But she couldn't be real.

She was still talking. "Arthur, I'm sorry, I was trying to find a way to ease you into this. But you saw through it of course, clever boy, and now there isn't an easy way. I'm sorry, my love."

"Where am I?" Arthur asked again.

"You're in Limbo."

Arthur swallowed. "I suppose that makes sense. After all, I think…"

"How much do you remember?" Mal asked.

"Eames and I were on a job up there. Ariadne, she was killed on the second level and the dream collapsed. But we didn't wake."

"No," Mal agreed. "No, you're here instead."

Arthur wondered why his head still hurt so much. "So if I kill myself here, I'll wake up?"

"Not this time, Arthur. You see, you've been shot."

Arthur snorted. "You said that before, Mal."

"Yes, and it's true. Up there, in the real world, you were shot while you were in the mark's mind. Up there, in the real world, you are dying. This place is Limbo but not in the sense you think. This is where dreaming and death meet."

"I'm dying? Wait – was Eames shot too?" Arthur straightened himself up as best he could. "Is Eames…?"

Mal cut him off. "Here, that's less important than the fact that you have a chance. So try to take it."

Arthur shook his head. "Why are you here? Of everyone, why would you be the projection who came to me?"

Mal smiled sadly. "Oh, Arthur, don't you see? I'm here because I'm the only person you could talk to about love."

***

Arthur blinked and suddenly he was no longer in a constructed hospital room but rather a charming restaurant he recognised: it was a bistro he and Eames had visited in Montreal after their eleventh job together and sixth one-night-stand.

Eames was sitting across the table wearing the same clothes he'd worn when they'd been on this date three years before. Arthur recognised the vicious red and sickly yellow floral print distinctly as it had taken him four attempts to contrive to get rid of it; this had been his least favourite of all Eames' shirts. A toothpick dangled from his mouth.

But the look on Eames' face was mingled relief and joy. "Darling. You made it."

Arthur tried to smile. Eames was here and allegedly real. "Mal sent me, I suppose."

Eames snorted. "You got Mal?" He sat up straight and pulled the toothpick from his mouth. "Oh dear – is she still angry?"

"She's like the real Mal," Arthur said, wondering if that was an answer. "Like she was before they went down to Limbo."

Eames' eyebrows raised in surprise. "Well. Here I thought we were just dreaming but maybe we both are crazy."

"We might be marks," Arthur felt obliged to say. "Someone might be running an extraction."

"Someone who forges better than me? Who knows us as well as we know each other? Who already rifled through our memories and came up with first date and first kiss?" Eames raised a lone eyebrow.

Arthur sighed. "It's not likely, is it?" It wasn't a question. He looked around the restaurant. All the details were exactly right this time: the pale green paint, the hideously unimaginative art selection. Arthur had hated the décor but Eames had insisted that the food was worth the inferior surroundings and if Arthur recalled correctly, he'd been right. "Did Mal talk to you?"

"Er, no," Eames said, shrugging carelessly. "Nash, of all people."

Arthur tensed at once. "What did Nash say to you?"

"That this was some kind of no man's land between dreaming and death and that they'd only show us the way out if we learned what we're here to learn."

"Succinct," Arthur said, tone a hint too sharp.

"I imagine Mal put things a little more prettily?"

"The gist was the same." Arthur shook his head, forcing himself to focus. "I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in any of this."

Eames shrugged, large and languorous. "Well, I was raised Church of England and I'm still not sure that I believe any of this. I don't see the harm in playing along a while though, until we come up with a better plan."

Arthur wanted to argue but no better plan immediately came to mind.

"I remember this restaurant," Eames said, looking around. "We appear to be about to have that chat about what, if anything, all the sex we'd been having means."

Arthur drummed his fingers on the table. "This is the night you told me you thought the Voynich manuscript was proof of alien existence."

"Unknown plants described in an unknown language? I cannot believe I am obliged to explain these things to you, frankly."

An unwilling smile tugged the corners of Arthur's mouth.

"And I made him smile. My life has not been wasted," Eames said, waving his arms in a wide, expansive gesture which took in the whole room.

Arthur felt his smile grow until his dimples showed. "It's been a while," he admitted.

Eames nodded. "Haven't seen you smiling as much lately. I didn't know what to do about it."

Arthur shifted awkwardly in his chair. "Well. We haven't been talking about the right things."

Eames cleared his throat. "Look, about that fight today-"

"Fight?" Arthur shook his head. "I'm sorry, my head hurts."

At once Eames has come around from his side of the table to rest his hand on Arthur's forehead, look into his eyes. "Are you all right, darling?"

"Mal said…" Arthur swallowed hard. "Mal said that I'd been shot."

Eames reached out as though he would immediately check Arthur for holes; Arthur caught his wrists. "Up above. She said that and then she sent me here. Maybe it's just an echo."

"If you're hurt, we have to get out," Eames said, eyes still full of worry. "We're wasting our time."

Arthur laughed, hollow. "Why did she send us here?"

Eames looked around, took it in. "Well, it's one of the first places we talked about our relationship."

"I _know that_ , Eames," Arthur ground out. "But…"

"Well, maybe that's why," Eames said, derailing Arthur's thought. "This is Mal we're talking about, after all."

Arthur was startled. "So we're here to fix our relationship? Our relationship is fine!"

Eames looked at the floor. "Yeah."

Arthur was unused to such obvious body language cues from Eames, who tailored his every move to the situation at hand. "Isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Eames said, looking Arthur straight in the eye with his most sincere expression. "You know I love you? Truly, madly, deeply and forever?"

"Of course I do," Arthur said. Then he looked away.

So all right, neither of them was doing a good job of being convincing. Searching for a change of subject, Arthur cleared his throat and said, "What was the fight about?"

"It was nothing," Eames said at once.

"Your dessert wine, sirs," said a waiter who'd appeared from nowhere. "Chateau d'Yquem, 1949."

Eames looked up, sighed, and went back to sit in his chair at the other side of the table.

Arthur shook his head. "The better part of three thousand dollars on wine that's too sweet for either of us to enjoy it. You never stop acting the part."

Eames straightened up at this. "You drank it."

"Because I thought you liked it. I thought we were sharing an experience."

The waiter continued on, oblivious. "Shall I pour the wine, sirs?"

Arthur frowned; his voice sounded familiar, too. But when he looked, it was the generic face of any projection. He'd half been expecting Nash, Nash who'd betrayed him and who had spoken to Eames as Mal had spoken to Arthur.

The thought of Nash made him angry again.

And then he remembered.

***

"For the love of Christ, Arthur, I was not flirting with Tadashi," Eames snapped. "Quite apart from anything else, he's not even legal."

Arthur raised his arm to straighten his cufflink. "I just wish you could find some way other than flirting to communicate with people. I understand that it's the only mode you really have…"

"Seriously, Arthur?" Eames cut him off. "Seriously?"

The elevator arrived then and the two stepped in. They were in Los Angeles, on their way to the penthouse suite of a very expensive hotel to work a job. The rest of the team was probably already there.

Arthur was quiet until the doors had closed. Then, "I just think you need to find more appropriate ways to behave."

"Arthur," Eames said in a dangerous tone, "I have never in my life behaved in a way which even approximates appropriate for anyone and I am certainly not about to start now. Perhaps if you'd consider removing the stick from your impeccable arse…"

"How do you think it makes me feel to watch you whisper and purr into the ear of another man, Eames?" Arthur snapped.

Eames looked towards the ceiling as though praying for strength. "Arthur, you have the best contacts in the business and you've always been the height of professionalism. Until the last six months. Do you know how many people you've managed to alienate in that time? Do you have the slightest idea?"

That stung. Arthur wanted to snap back about Eames' own behaviour during those months but Eames was already pressing his advantage. "So here I am, having to be extra-nice to everyone so they don't think that working with us is going to be a nightmare and you shout at me for it. Which rather proves their point, wouldn't you agree?"

"I do not need your help," Arthur ground out.

"Oh, right, I forgot, you don't need anyone's help," Eames spat. "Heavens forfend the mighty Arthur let someone else help him."

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open.

"Let's just get to work," Arthur snarled and stepped out into the suite. "Try not to seduce our new chemist, if it's not too much to ask."

And then he stopped. "This is the argument we had right before we went on the job?"

"Yeah," said Eames, shaky, as he followed Arthur out into the suite. "It was pretty nasty."

Arthur shifted slightly. "Have I really made so many enemies?"

Eames shrugged a little awkwardly. "Remember Tatiana? The frighteningly talented Russian? Called me for a job two months ago but it had to be just me. Said she never wanted to work with you again, legendary competence be damned."

Arthur huffed out a small laugh. "Oh."

Eames stepped forward a little more. "The truth is, darling, you've been like a bear with a sore head for quite a while. I mean. I thought after we got back together it was going to be plain sailing, but…"

"We never officially split up," Arthur protested.

"Well, no, but I didn't see you for almost a year before the Fisher job when you were off following Cobb all over the world…"

"I don't want to have that fight again," Arthur said, tired.

Eames snorted. "Well, I don't really fancy the one about what an awful flirt I am, either."

"Fair enough." Arthur swallowed and looked away, suddenly lost for words.

"You know I'd never leave you," Eames said suddenly. "Don't you?"

"I know," Arthur said. "I do know that. I'm sorry, I'll try to be kinder. I just…"

"You just, Arthur?" said Mal, stepping out into the hallway. "Why don't you tell Eames what's really been going through your mind?"

Arthur flinched even as Eames stepped forward. "Mallorie? _Est-ce possible que ce soit vraiment toi? Réellement toi-même?_ "

Arthur rolled his eyes. Eames had always loved speaking French with Mal, partly because he knew that Arthur couldn't understand a word.

" _Mais oui, mon garçon ridicule, sinon,_ " Mal said, rushing forward to embrace Eames and place a fervent kiss on each cheek and then his mouth, at which he laughed. " _Qui pourrait-il être? Je remarque que ton goût en vestes de complet n’a pas amélioré._ "

Arthur wondered if that helped him. If the French was real then they were probably in Eames' mind; if not, then Arthur's. The details of Eames' restaurant had been right, that was likely another clue.

"Eh bien, sans tes conseils, à qui aurais-je pu m’addresser?" Eames said, and he looked every bit as bowled over as Arthur had felt at the sight of Mal, either real or at the very least acting like herself again: charming and loving and convinced she knew better than anybody else. 

"Mon amant n’a aucune imagination," Eames was saying, apparently able to fall right back into his old patterns with this Mal. Arthur wished he could just sink into her presence like that but he always seemed to have to make things difficult for himself, always questioning, digging, always focusing on the details rather than the big picture. She was a projection, that was all. But whose?

Perhaps, if they truly were deeper even than limbo, it no longer mattered whose mind they were in, Arthur thought suddenly. There was nothing here but what one brought.

He'd apparently brought all his relationship problems and a therapist.

Mal laughed and sparkled at whatever Eames had said. "You persist in saying such things. But you know it is not true." She sobered. "If only you knew just how untrue."

"Look, we've talked," Arthur said, impatient. "That's why you brought us here, isn't it? So we've talked. We know what we've done wrong. Can we go now?"

"Our bodies are vulnerable up there," Eames pointed out to Mal.

Mal waved her hand. "You are in the lowest of dreams. Time spent here is seconds above. You should focus on the task at hand."

"The task at hand?" Arthur exploded. "Are you telling me that you almost killed us and brought us here so that you could force us to play out your idea of _what it is to be a lover_?"

"I thought I was your projection, Arthur," Mal said, refusing to flinch. "Isn't that what you said? So really perhaps I am nothing more than your manifestation of exactly that lesson."

Arthur was trying to absorb that when Eames chimed in. "The French was right," he said. "Arthur doesn't speak French."

"Indeed not," Mal said, smiling. "But I do. I was already here, a part of me, the part of me I left with you. And I loved you and love you and the rest of me came back to give you what you need. You, Arthur. Because you took care of Dom for me."

Arthur swallowed hard, anger forgotten. "Mal…"

Mal faced him down, strong and stern and lovely. "You make fun, my love, but there is no more important lesson. And what you've done here is barely scratch the surface."

"It was Arthur who brought us here, though. He wanted to remember and then we were playing out the memory."

"He's right," Arthur said slowly. He focused hard, trying to make himself a gun.

Mal snorted. "Arthur, this is not a dream in the sense that you understand. How many more times? You cannot build here. You can only remember, and learn."

"So I'll remember," Arthur said.

***

"I have to say, I was expecting to find our first fuck," Eames said, looking round. Vienna, the night of the Opera Ball: the opera house had been turned into a dance floor, the artificial floor stretching over the stalls and to the very back of the stage. The boxes were full of people who had all paid thousands of euros for the privilege, the very crème de la crème of society. Everything was lovely in shades of white and soft red. "But no, of course. How like you to bring me back to the night you made me wear a white tie and tails, darling," Eames whispered.

Arthur forced himself to relax. Here they were at one of the biggest society events in the world. Debutantes from throughout Europe and even further afield were dancing a waltz, dressed all in white. He and Eames had a private box from which to watch the proceedings. They were there to observe a mark, but Arthur had found himself constantly distracted by the fine building. And, of course, Eames.

Eames had been clean shaven for once, perfectly at home here in his suit and amongst the elite. Arthur had looked at how well he'd blended into his surroundings and wondered, does he ever stop forging?

"You made us stay until five," Eames said, smiling. "You insisted that we were here to work."

"We were here to work," Arthur said. "But I wish now I'd done it differently." Arthur had so many regrets. So many that he'd never ever realised were there until now. He looked back out into the crowd but he didn't think too long on it when Eames shifted in his seat until his leg pressed against Arthur's. 

"I did rather like the end of the night," said Eames.

Arthur smiled. "Then let's go there."

And they were in their suite at the Hotel Sacher, the optimal balance of their respective tastes: quietly tasteful opulence for Arthur, with delicately patterned wallpapers, chandeliers and nineteenth century oil paintings to suit Eames. But Arthur had taken all of that in hours before and now he was instead intent on pressing himself closer to Eames.

Eames knocked all the cushions from the linen sofa with one arm, scattering them in a way that Arthur would later complain about but now he was being dragged down on top of his lover and wanted nothing but more. He sank his teeth gently into the plushness of Eames' lower lip and thrilled when Eames moaned in response, his hand curling in Arthur's hair.

"I love you in these beautiful clothes," Eames said now as he'd said then.

"I want you out of them," Arthur replied.

Eames pressed a brief kiss to Arthur's lips. "Well, that also sounds agreeable," he said, voice too even for Arthur's taste.

"Asshole," Arthur snarled before he pressed his mouth to Eames' again, deepening the kiss this time, sweeping Eames' lips with his tongue, meeting Eames' with his own as it snaked out in a silent plea. Arthur moved to straddle Eames, his hands sliding up over Eames' chest, under the lapels of his tailcoat. He tugged on the bowtie until it came loose, kissing Eames all through it, pecks alternating with the slide of tongue curling into the corner of his mouth. Eames opened his mouth wider and Arthur obliged, running his tongue slickly over crooked teeth. Eames pulled away, gasping, and Arthur took the opportunity to pull off his tie and open his shirt.

"All night," Arthur whispered as he unbuttoned the shirt hastily, sliding it off Eames' shoulders as best he could with their combined weight pushing Eames back into the sofa, "all night I thought about…" He couldn't quite complete the thought so instead lowered his mouth to trace the lines of Eames' tattoos with his tongue.

"Ah, you thought of these," Eames said with a smile in his voice, just as he had. "You thought of how I looked in my suit and how the dirty chav ink below it made me a lie. And it made you hard."

Yes, Arthur had said that night. Yes, and he'd slithered down Eames' body and sucked his cock. He'd thought it was a good memory.

Now he stopped, pulled back to look at Eames' face. "How much of you do I know?"

Eames blinked, startled. "What?"

"How much of you is real?" Arthur shook his head. "I can't tell any more – I used to think I could. But the suit or the ink, I don't know which is true. I don't know."

Eames shifted his upper body, managing to sit up slightly, keeping Arthur balanced with a hand on his back. "Arthur, they both are. Everything always is. I love you."

Arthur swallowed. "Yes, but Eames…"

"Stop it," Eames said, frowning, pulling Arthur closer. "Stop it. I love you."

"I brought you here so we could fuck," Arthur said bluntly.

"Did you hear me complaining?" Eames reached up and kissed him. "Arthur, feel it. This is real."

Eames kissed him again and Arthur felt his resolve weaken. Another kiss and Arthur gave in. But, "I want to make love," he said, hating himself for it.

Eames though smiled as though this was the best present Arthur could have offered him. "Then let's."

On this night, this real night, Arthur had looked up at Eames' shoulder constantly, drinking in that contrast between tattoo and formalwear and palming his own cock. But now he stripped the clothes from Eames body methodically, kissing every part of skin he uncovered on his way, running his hands over Eames' shoulders and back when they were finally bare to the touch.

"Arthur," Eames whispered, raising his hands to bracket Arthur's face. He kissed Arthur's mouth as though taking delicate sips, but it didn't take long for the passion to rise in them both again. Arthur's erection grew ever-more insistent but he was still wearing all his clothes.

He pulled away. "Why can't I just dream away my clothes?" he huffed.

Eames threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, darling," he said, kissing Arthur again. "Let's stand a moment."

They did, and it was Arthur's turn to have his clothes peeled from his body while Eames kissed him. Jacket, waistcoat, shirt, "Always so many layers," Eames groaned into Arthur's ear.

Arthur moaned and his fingers found their way to the nape of Eames neck, digging in slightly. He caught one of Eames' hands in his own and brought it to his mouth so he could suck on the dextrous fingers.

Eames made a choked sound. "All right. We need supplies and we need to get out of our clothes."

"You're more naked than me," Arthur pointed out.

"Right," Eames said, kissing Arthur's throat.

"Eames," Arthur said, the name catching in his throat and emerging breathy and ruined.

"Right," Eames said again and stepped away from Arthur as though it physically pained him. Arthur wasted no time in removing the last of his clothes, his shoes, socks, pants. He had just finished when Eames came back with lubricant and condoms, fished out of one or other of their bags.

Arthur looked at the condom a second. "Do we need that here?"

Eames shrugged. Then he was hauling Arthur towards him and Arthur shivered, the warmth of Eames' body a contrast to the February night, cool even in their room. Their cocks lined up and brushed; Arthur wanted more so badly he couldn't think. Eames bent his head to tug on a nipple with his teeth, lifting Arthur's arm to sniff the scent of him from his armpits.

"You're filthy," Arthur gasped.

"You fucking love it," Eames replied, licking the underside of Arthur's bicep.

Back down on the sofa they went in the same position as before, Arthur straddling Eames. It would have been easy to wrap a hand around their two cocks but Arthur didn't want that; he reached for the lubricant and methodically poured a generous measure over Eames' first two fingers.

Eames smirked as he slipped his hand around behind Arthur and every so gently stroked a teasing finger over his hole without pushing inside. Arthur gasped and tried to push back for more but Eames had brought his hand back for more lubricant.

Again and again, Eames rubbed his fingertips over Arthur's hole and Arthur writhed, desperately seeking more. It was like that time in New York when Eames had teased him for what felt like hours, denying him, asking him why he thought he deserved Eames' cock. Arthur had sworn and mocked and refused to tell Eames what he wanted to hear but in the end, Eames had broken him, made him beg. He wondered if this would be like that.

He lost himself for a moment in trying to work out if this was a memory or a lesson, if Eames was really here or if Arthur had somehow managed to create this encounter from some sort of best-of list. Then Eames seemed to notice his distraction and Arthur found himself full of fingers.

He gasped and sank back on them, head thrown back. Arthur was looser than he'd expected to be; of course he was, this was back when he and Eames had sex regularly and there were only two digits inside him now, but Eames was twisting them and Arthur was shuddering with every motion. Eames' other hand came up around Arthur's back, holding his shoulder blade while Eames kissed his collarbones. If Arthur hadn't braced his hands on Eames' shoulders, he would have fallen.

"Fuck," Arthur was saying without meaning to. "Fuck." He was so hard, so unimaginably hard.

"Yeah," Eames said against his jaw, quickening the rhythm of his fingers; Arthur slumped forward, closer to his body, a keening noise torn from his throat.

"Let me slick up your cock," Arthur gasped. "Let me, I need it."

Eames groaned and pulled Arthur into a kiss that was all sloppy tongue and desperate need. He took his arm away from Arthur's back and groped out blindly on the couch until he found the lubricant and handed it to Arthur who covered the palm of his hand in it and reached for Eames' cock. Eames gasped and his eyes flew open as Arthur stroked the lubricant onto him, intent on it, completely ignoring his own needy prick even though it was so close to Eames', would have been so easy to take in hand.

Eames looked back and forth between Arthur's face and down to what Arthur was doing to him. His concentration was shot, his fingers sliding out of Arthur. Arthur watched only Eames' eyes, the wonder and the pleasure.

"Who else makes you feel this way?" Arthur demanded.

"No one," Eames choked out at once. "No one, not ever, you're the only one…"

Arthur snarled and smashed his mouth onto Eames' again, biting at those beautiful lips. His hand tightened on Eames' cock and he shifted his weight, lining them up. Eames pulled at Arthur's ass cheeks, opening him as much as possible and Arthur sank all the way down in one smooth movement.

When Arthur had taken Eames all the way inside, the sound Eames made had Arthur gritting his teeth against the urge to come. Eames' face looked desperate and when Arthur looked at Eames again his expression was completely stripped bare, gone in a haze of desire.

No pretence here, Arthur smiled to himself. Eames' hands had moved up to his waist which meant it was time for Arthur to move. Wrapping his arms around Eames' neck, Arthur pressed a damp kiss to the side of his face before closing his eyes, letting his head droop to one side and beginning to rock.

Eames' hands moved restlessly up Arthur's spine and down his sides, curving a fingernail over the top of the hipbone in just the way Arthur liked. He'd started thrusting to meet Arthur's slide up and down on his body, pushing Arthur further and one particularly hard thrust had Arthur's eyes flying open and his head falling back, a cry dragged from his throat.

Eames gave a sound between laugh and groan and did it again. Arthur moaned and allowed himself to shift his weight forward so that instead of showing Eames his throat he could see him.

When he moved, though, Arthur found himself staring out over Vienna; the couch was positioned in front of the large glass windows and he could see hints of his own reflection as well as the illuminated buildings of the city. He closed his eyes to focus instead on Eames arms around him, Eames' cock inside him, Eames' hot breath on his shoulder and the sounds he was making. This had never happened in Vienna but here he was and Eames was fucking him so hard, holding on to his body so tight Arthur knew it would give him bruises.

Arthur's hand tightened in Eames' hair, pulling his head back; Eames snarled, knowing that meant Arthur was close. Please, his nerves screamed, his body taut as a bow. Please, please, please. Just a little more. Just a little more.

The orgasm burst through Arthur, up his spine like electricity, hot and wet and fierce, sending his cum all over his own cock and shooting up between his body and Eames to leave a white streak over Eames' tattoos. Eames moaned in appreciation and Arthur clung to his shoulders, riding out the last of his own pleasure while Eames found his, and came deep inside where Arthur could feel the heat of it.

Arthur clung to Eames and looked out at Vienna while they both gasped and waited for their respective heart rates to slow.

"That was amazing," Eames gasped. "Fuck." He turned his face into the curve of Arthur's throat so that Arthur could feel every panting breath he took against his skin.

We didn't use a condom, Arthur panicked for a moment before remembering that it was a dream.

"At least if we die now," Eames said, "we got to do that first."

"Your priorities," Arthur forced out. He couldn't manage any more words but that was all right, Eames had understood because he was laughing.

Arthur gripped Eames' hair in his hand again and thought, I love you.

It never made its way out of his mouth.

***

Eames kissed Arthur and told him he'd get a wet cloth to wipe them both down. Arthur settled back on the couch, but Eames didn't come back from the bathroom.

He didn't come back for so long that Arthur's thoughts shifted from _what is he doing in there_ to _where has he been taken?_

"He's safe," said Nash, appearing out of nowhere.

Arthur started and automatically reached for where he'd put his gun – but there wasn't one. The room hadn't been set up properly. Part of him wished he could just dream his clothes back on but he forced down the trace of self-consciousness he felt and glared at Nash.

"We didn't want to disturb you just then," Nash said nervously. "But you're not here so you can relive your sexual highs. You're just doing here what you've been doing up there: using sex as a Band-Aid. It doesn’t solve anything."

"My relationship with Eames really isn't any of your business," Arthur said coldly.

"That would be true if you hadn't come here."

"I don't know why you're here."

"Eames brought me," Nash said.

That got Arthur's attention.

"Oh, yes," Nash said, nodding. "You brought Mal and Eames brought me. Or rather, he opened the door and I came."

Arthur snarled and straightened up at once, no longer concerned about his nakedness. "Eames would never have brought you here." He marched away from Nash and after Eames, towards the bathroom down the corridor.

But when he opened the door he was in his Paris flat, the one Eames had a key to even though he didn't precisely live there. Arthur looked down; he was dressed now, cashmere jumper, Armani jeans. His phone was in his hand. Jenkins calling.

Arthur's headache, forgotten, came back full force. I must not answer that phone, he told himself and pressed "Decline".

In the hall, Arthur heard keys turn in the lock. "Darling?" came Eames' voice.

But when Arthur went to the hall, Eames wasn't there.

Confused, he walked back to the bedroom. What had he been doing? He was putting together a job, that was it. And he was waiting to speak to Jenkins. Eames had said not to call him but Arthur had worked with Jenkins before and didn't see why; the man was reliable and pleasant. Arthur was waiting for his call.

On cue, his phone rang.

Arthur looked at it for a long time, a feeling of quiet dread filling him. But he had been waiting for this call? Hadn't he?

"No," Arthur said.

In the hall, Arthur heard keys turn in the lock. "Darling?" came Eames' voice.

But when Arthur went to the hall, Eames wasn't there.

***

"Where were you?" Arthur asked. He's in bed with Eames, which is as things should be, and they are in New York, which is also as things should be. The bedroom in this apartment boasts floor to ceiling windows and the view of the grey-glass cityscape is one of the reasons Arthur loves it. He also loves the doorman, the huge bed, the property values, the clean, sleek lines of it. But it's not home. Not until Eames is in it, messing it up, driving Arthur mad.

"When?" Eames said lazily.

Arthur thought for a moment. "I don't remember," he said, smiling at himself.

Eames laughed. "My Arthur, forgetting the details? I'm shocked."

Arthur made as though to smack him but Eames caught his hand and kissed his fingers. Arthur shifted on the cotton sheets, comfortable but striving to be more so. "We performed inception," Arthur said, pride making him beam.

"Of course we did, darling," Eames said, kissing him. "We're brilliant, after all."

"And now Cobb's safely home and retired," Arthur said, running his fingers through Eames' hair, the unspoken question making him feel oddly vulnerable.

Eames ran the edge of a nail down the curve of Arthur's jaw. "Let's stay here," Arthur said, stretching himself against Eames. "Let's stay here all day."

Eames laughed. "You'll never make it. A whole day of relaxation?"

Arthur reached out and cupped his face. "I mean it. I just got you back."

Eames blinked once, twice, taking in all the details of Arthur's face. "You say that, but the truth is that it was you. You left, you decided when to come back."

"It didn't feel like a choice," Arthur said quietly. "Not going or coming back." He rolled onto his back so that he didn't have to look at Eames while he said what surely had to be coming.

"I understood, the first few months," Eames said. "I did. But then I barely heard from you, sometimes days passed, I didn't know if you were alive or dead…"

"I'm sorry," Arthur said, and it was easier to say here which is why he'd brought them here, to this bed. "I never thought of it as leaving you. I tried to tell you that."

"You packed your bags and you followed another man around the world," Eames said with a humourless chuckle. "And I'm such a fool for you that I took you right back."

"This isn't how it went," Arthur objected.

"No," Eames conceded. "I think I spent this day listing all the things I missed about you, if I recall." He caught Arthur's wrist, pressed a kiss to the inside. "Number one on the list – the whipcord muscles of your forearms when you take off your suit jacket and roll up your shirt sleeves. I remember when that was as much of your skin as I'd ever seen, ever thought you'd let me see."

Arthur rolled back towards him. "You flirted outrageously."

Eames shrugged. "I knew what I wanted. I wanted to see more of your skin, of course, but what really made me want you was the first time I saw those delicious dimples of yours."

Arthur smiled at once, making them appear. Eames pressed a kiss to the left first, then the right. "You were always so buttoned up and I was desperate to know what was beneath."

Arthur's breath hitched as Eames' mouth moved to his throat. "I'm not very good at showing you," he whispered.

Eames' lips brushed against Arthur's collarbone when he spoke. "But then there were days like this one."

"We stayed in bed all day," Arthur said, hands coming to clutch Eames' shoulders. "And I tried to tell you all the things I missed about you, too. The way you keep me from losing myself in the work. The way you snore and hog the covers and the way I can never sleep as well when you're not there to do that."

"And I looked at you with wonder," Eames said. "And I asked, 'Are you really going to stay with me this time?'"

"I said, of course I am," Arthur said. "And I did this." Then he kissed Eames, touched his tongue to those crooked teeth, ran his fingers over the awful, beloved ink on his skin and held him close. "I was always coming back to you."

***

"You can't hide there," Nash said. "You can't."

Arthur's head swam a little at being pulled from his New York apartment into this… wherever this was. A black empty space in the middle of the dreamscape with someone he had no desire to talk to.

Then Nash's words sank in. "It happened," Arthur said fiercely. "It was real."

"Yes," Nash said. "But it's not the only thing that happened. That moment, that's not where you live. This one is."

_"I'll speak with you soon, Jenkins," Arthur said, his stomach lurching as the bottom fell out of everything. In the hall, Arthur heard keys turn in the lock. "Darling?" came Eames' voice._

"Stop it!" Arthur cried, desperate. "Stop it!"

Nash shook his head. "You always prided yourself on knowing your facts. Now you're making yourself wilfully blind. You think that's the basis of a healthy relationship?" 

Arthur snorted. "I hardly think you're in a position to give me relationship advice."

"No," Nash acknowledged. "But I can tell you about betrayal."

"I don't have to listen to this," Arthur muttered, making to stand up.

"I wanted you, you know," Nash blurted out.

Arthur looked up at him, incredulous.

"That was why it happened."

"Nothing happened," Arthur said at once.

***

A park. Arthur was wearing clothes for a fall day, brown leather Zegna jacket over cashmere sweater.

"There you are!" Eames cried and when Arthur turned to see him he was dressed in tweed, green wellington boots on his feet, even a flat cap on his head. He looked ridiculous and yet perfectly at home.

"Are we shooting clay pigeons today?" Arthur asked. That's right: this was Eames' family estate.

"I don't think so. I don't seem to have a shotgun," Eames said.

"I meant later, as you well know," Arthur said, his tone two parts scorn to one part affection.

Eames shrugged. "As you wish. My father's more your man for that sort of thing."

Arthur shifted, suddenly wondering why he'd chosen this moment. Because the next thing he was supposed to say was, "You know it's not that I don't want to meet your family, Eames. It's just…"

"Yes, yes, we've had this conversation before." Eames frowned slightly.

Arthur looked away. "Besides," he said, trying to lighten the mood, "this way you can show me round and it's just the two of us. In this completely private, lovely wooded park."

Eames raised an eyebrow. "Why, Mr Levine, are you trying to seduce me?"

Arthur's grin became predatory. "Do I have to try?" He advanced on Eames slowly, getting ready to kneel in the mud, the price of dry cleaning be damned.

"No," said Nash's voice firmly.

And Arthur was back in the void again.

"What?" Arthur snapped.

"You can't hide here," Nash said again. "You have to face…"

"Nothing happened," Arthur snarled.

"It did," Nash said quietly. "You know it did. I was always a coward about it – well, about everything. After it happened I finally knew, you see, that I'd never have you. And maybe if I hadn't been so angry about that…"

"Fuck you, Nash," Arthur snapped suddenly. "Nothing happened that justifies you selling Dom and I out."

"I'm sort of lucky, really," Nash went on as though Arthur had not spoken. "I'm lucky I was already dead by the time you figured it out. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you'd have come after me."

Arthur smirked, vicious and bitter. "Why would I come after you when nothing happened?"

"All right, then," said Nash. "It will have to be the hard way."

***

Arthur in a suit, nothing special, his second best Paul Smith. He was standing in an apartment he knew he'd never been to before; outside, the window, the view stretched down to what was clearly Lake Geneva, the Jet d'Eau visible spraying water high into the air. Eames was lounging at a desk over to one side of the room, Nash at the other. Naswisko, the Polish point man whose work Arthur respected even though he loathed him personally, was pacing back and forth with his phone glued to his ear.

"What's this? I thought there was nothing here but my memories?"

"Not just yours," Mal said quietly.

"Eames," Arthur said, walking over to him. "Eames, come on, would you…"

"He can't hear you, Arthur," Mal said, "because you weren't there that day. This time you're just watching."

Naswisko swore and hung up the call. "I have to go out," he said, swallowing his vowels in that Eastern European way he had. "The mark changed his typical Sunday pattern and Jenkins can't figure out why."

"All right," Eames said, "I've got enough to work on for now. I'm starting to get a feel for the lovely Mademoiselle Le Blanc."

"Working on the maze," was all Nash said.

"All right. I'll be a few hours." With that, Naswisko was gone.

"Eames?" Arthur said in a smaller voice. Eames continued leafing through photographs, making notes here and there. Arthur might as well not have been standing there. "But before, I changed things," Arthur protested.

"Yes, but…" Mal's voice trailed off and she gave him a look full of sympathy. "This isn't Eames' lesson, this is yours."

Arthur swallowed hard, horrible realisation flooding him. Nash stood and walked over to Eames' desk. "No."

"I'm sorry, Arthur," Mal said, "but you don't have a lot of time and you were refusing to listen."

Nash was now hovering over Eames, who looked up, face impassive. "Help you?"

"I was surprised that Arthur wasn't with you," Nash said, clearly fishing.

"Why would he be?" Eames said nonchalantly. "He wasn't contracted for this job, now, was he?"

"But you two were working together almost exclusively for a while. And you know how this profession is full of gossips."

"Is it," Eames said, perfectly enunciated, giving away nothing.

"They said that you two were Bonnie and Clyde," Nash went on. "And I thought, how could that be? Arthur's so…"

"Do not criticise Arthur to see how I will react," Eames said flatly. "It's transparent and frankly rather dull. Not to mention impossible to believe, given that I've seen how you look at him."

"What?" Nash spluttered.

Eames looked up at Nash, cold and hard. "You want to fuck him. It's unspeakably obvious but of course Arthur hasn't noticed. The man has no imagination, after all. But I see it."

"Are you jealous?" Nash blurted.

Eames laughed. "Of you? No."

"No, of Cobb," Nash said.

At that, Eames' laughter died. He stood up, drawing himself to his full height which was still a couple of inches shorter than Nash, but where Nash was lanky, Eames was pure muscle. "You might want to stay out of things that are not your business," Eames said with a thread of menace in his tone.

Nash's eyes were filled with fear but he stood his ground. "Arthur took off with Cobb six months ago, everyone knows that. No one's seen you two together since. I was just wondering…"

"I know what you were wondering," Eames spat. "What is it you think, that we're going to form some kind of broken hearts club?"

"No," Nash said and even Arthur could see that his breathing had increased and his gaze had dropped to Eames lips, those beautiful lips.

"No," Arthur said again. "No, I don't want to see this."

"I know you don't," Mal said softly. "I'm sorry, Arthur, I truly am, but we are not getting through to you and you have to face it."

"Oh, fuck me," Eames muttered to himself and started to laugh. The sound had no humour in it, was millimetres away from a snarl.

"What's so…" Nash objected but he fell silent when Eames reached out to slip two fingers into the waistband of his trousers to pull him closer.

"That's what you want, is it?" Eames said, crowding into Nash now. "You want to know what Arthur has?"

"I…" Eames didn't wait for a response. He curled his thick fingers into Nash's long hair and tugged his head to the side and covered his mouth with his own.

Nash responded at once, moaning. Arthur, furious, tried to rush towards the two, to separate them but then Mal was holding him back, physically strong in a way she had never been in life.

"You cannot make this not have happened, cheri," she told him.

But it didn't change how sick Arthur felt watching Eames push Nash back on the desk, taking control of his body. Arthur knew this Eames just as well as he knew the Eames who surrendered so perfectly, knew this was about anger and loneliness, could see it in the lines of his body, the way his face had gone haunted. But that didn't change the cold, sick fury he felt as Eames kissed Nash, touched Nash, _fucked_ Nash there on the desk while Arthur stood with Mal's arms around him, as helpless to stop this as he had been in reality.

"Please," Arthur said, his voice breaking, as Nash fumbled to roll a condom down over Eames' cock. "Please, I can't watch any more. Please."

"I'm sorry," Mal said and then all at once they were back in the Paris apartment.

Mal let Arthur go and he fell to the floor, shaking.

"You knew that had happened," Mal said.

Arthur forced himself to look at her. "Yes. But I was the one who left him, I didn't have the right to be angry…"

"Ah, bien, so you had no resentment towards him because of it," Mal said. "Well, that is a very enlightened, French attitude. Of course, if Dom had ever touched another woman I do not think I could have been so very enlightened, whatever the circumstances. Stop _pretending!_ "

"I'm not the one who pretends!" Arthur snapped. "Eames pretends: I don't…"

"Don't you?" Mal said and her voice was so soft and full of sympathy. "You don't pretend that you don't know?"

Jenkins' name appeared on the screen of his phone. 

Arthur looked at Mal for a long moment. "I already lived this."

"Yes," said Mal.

Arthur held the phone in his hand for another moment, listened to the ring tone, 'La Vie en rose'. It made his throat catch.

"You can do this," Mal said.

Arthur pressed 'Answer'. "Jenkins," Arthur said, all business, unsuspecting. "A pleasure to hear from you."

"Likewise, Arthur," said Jenkins. "A sad dearth of competent point men about these days."

"The same is true of extractors."

Jenkins laughed. "I assume the message you left relates to the Perkasa job?"

"Correct. We estimate meeting in Jakarta in ten days. I've completed most of the background in advance of assembling this team."

"Who else have you got?"

"Ariadne building. Yusuf's chemicals but the man himself won't come into the field. Probably Eames if we need a forger."

"Oh, Eames? Nice to know you two are being professional about things."

Arthur frowned into the phone. "What do you mean?"

"Well after the break-up and all. You kept it quiet, credit it to you, but on the Geneva job it was obvious."

Arthur swallowed. "Oh? That is, I didn't know that was common knowledge."

"Well, Nash always was a gossip."

"Nash?"

There was a silence. Jenkins cleared his throat. "Anyway, what's important is that if you'll be working together I suppose you've resolved it all." He was embarrassed, Arthur remembered. That was how Arthur had known for sure.

Arthur wanted to ask. He did. But he was supposed to know everything. He was supposed to know everything about everyone. "As you say. I'll call you again to confirm Jakarta," Arthur said. Jenkins was saying goodbye when Arthur cut the connection.

In the hall, Arthur heard keys turn in the lock. "Darling?" came Eames' voice.

Arthur was still staring at his phone.

"Darling?" Eames looked around the doorway from the hall. "Oh, you are here. Didn't you hear me?"

"I was on the phone," Arthur said woodenly. "Looking for someone to step in for Jenkins since you don't want to work with him."

"Tisdall's good," Eames said, handing Arthur one of the pastries he'd gone out for. "Or maybe that Australian, Williams?"

"Maybe. Eames, what was the last job you worked with Jenkins?"

"Geneva," Eames said. "Numbered accounts from a banker, of all the pedestrian secrets."

"Who was his team?"

"I forget."

"You forget?" Arthur said in disbelief.

Eames shrugged. "Nothing memorable about the job. Do you want coffee?" And he brushed past Arthur into the kitchen.

Arthur stood and looked back down at his phone.

"You live in this moment," said Mal, who hadn't been there a moment ago, or maybe she'd always been there.

Arthur looked at her. He could only imagine what his eyes must look like. Arthur couldn't hold on any more and his legs went out from under him; Mal followed him to the floor.

"You knew," she said, her voice low and sad. "You knew but you couldn’t bear to have Eames see how very hurt you were, how the thought of him touching anyone else made you ache inside. So you shut him out instead. Oh, Arthur, my love."

"I didn't want him to leave," Arthur said, his voice empty of tone. "I didn't have the right to be angry but I was. I was so… There was no one else for me, you know. Not ever."

"I know," Mal said, stroking her fingers through Arthur's hair. "I, of all people, know how you love him."

***

Eames came back to himself in the kitchen of the Paris apartment. Except it wasn't, any more.

Nash was there looking away, embarrassed. 

It took Eames a moment to piece together what had happened. "What did you do?"

Nash didn't look at him. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, God," Eames said, bracing himself on what should have been the kitchen counter but was instead just something solid in the blackness. They were back in the void. "He was never supposed to know."

"He knew," Nash said. "And you knew he did."

Eames straightened. "I have to talk to him. I have to explain."

"You can't," Nash said. "Not yet. He isn't ready."

"But you said we were here to resolve things. So what if we can't? Do we stay here forever?"

"No, you don't have that much time."

"What do you mean?" Eames whirled round to face Nash. "I thought time here was infinite?"

"Not exactly. Eames, please calm down."

"But what if we go back and he leaves me? What if we get up there and he can't even look at me? Nash – why did you do this?"

"You did this," Nash said, not unkindly. "What you did was your own choice. You couldn't hope to hide it from him forever."

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Eames said.

"Your life was what you made of it," Nash said. He tugged at the collar of his shirt. "I understand regret, though. Wishing you'd made different choices. But here…"

But Eames wasn't listening any more. "You said 'was'."

Nash looked at him in confusion. "What?"

"You said 'was'," said Eames. "My life was what I made of it."

"I didn't…" Nash tried but Eames could always tell when he was about to hear a pack of lies.

"Nash," Eames said, voice deadly. "Nash, what are you telling me?"

"Oh, well," Nash blustered, "everyone's life is…"

"You can't keep me here," Eames snarled, reaching to catch Nash by his lapels. "You can't possibly – is that your master plan, you and Mal and whoever sent you here? You're going to trap us in limbo forever?"

"Of course not, Eames," Nash began.

"I won't let you keep Arthur here."

"Arthur doesn't have to stay here."

"Just me then? And why's that? Am I a more amusing plaything?"

"No, Eames," Nash cried, wrenching himself away. "It's because you're already dead!" Nash shouted as though the words were being torn from him, as though it was the very last thing in the world he wanted to have to say.

Eames looked at him in stark horror, looking for any of the tells he knew, anything at all that would tell Eames that it wasn't true even as leaden certainty gripped him. "You're lying."

"I'm sorry, Eames. I'm not. You're dead." Nash was telling the truth.

"It's not possible."

"Mal and I are real here but we can't go back, we can't leave," Nash said. "And so are you, but you can't go back any more. Didn't you wonder why Arthur was in pain and you weren't?" 

"No," said Eames, backing away. Nash held out his hands towards him, palms up but Eames could stand no more and so he bolted, running blindly through nothing but dark, smoky spaces where he could build nothing, sense nothing, fall into nothing at all.

***

In the Paris apartment, Mal was still holding Arthur, murmuring soft words of comfort to try and keep him from falling completely apart. Arthur hated himself for allowing her words to soothe him but he didn't have the strength to pull away.

From behind them, Nash's voice came. "Eames ran into the void."

Mal swore. "You were supposed to keep an eye on him."

"I'm sorry."

"You stay away from him," Arthur spat without turning to look at Nash.

Nash walked around in front of him, met his eyes. "What you saw – that was the other way I betrayed you. And I'm sorry."

For a moment, Arthur stayed perfectly still, muscles coiled. Arthur had killed before but he'd never wanted to as much as he did then. With an incoherent snarl he made a move towards Nash but didn't make it, didn't even manage to stand before Mal caught him and held him back, whispering to him in French. By the tone, she was offering him words of comfort but he couldn't understand anything of what she said.

Arthur was surprised to realise that he was talking but less surprised at what he was saying. "I'll kill him," was coming out of Arthur's mouth. "I'll kill him."

Nash watched for a moment before he said, "Mal, let him go."

Mal looked up, startled.

Nash's face was grim. "It's what he wants. Isn't it, Arthur? It's easier to punish people who hurt you than it is to face your own mistakes. So here I am, the person who hurt you most."

"Nash, I don't-" Mal began.

"Let me go," Arthur said, voice full of hatred.

Mal's arms tightened reflexively before she took a deep breath and acquiesced. Arthur stood up, slowly. Neither he nor Nash noticed Mal's body glow white for a long moment, too focused on one another. Neither of them saw the way she straightened, the way her expression became more calculating.

Totally focused on Nash, Arthur spat, "You," advancing on his target. "You took everything away from me. You. This is your fault."

"Is it," Nash said, standing his ground for once.

"You son of a bitch," Arthur shouted and leapt at Nash again, knocking him to the ground. "You destroyed everything." A blow to the face. "You betrayed me." Another blow. Nash's hands came up to protect his face on pure instinct; Arthur snarled again. "You. You. You…"

"Arthur!" A shout from behind him: Nash's voice.

Arthur spun. Nash was standing behind him, horrified.

He turned back to look, knowing already what he would see, the sick feeling in his stomach intensifying.

It was Eames on the ground, Eames he had been beating.

"It was me you wanted to hurt," Eames choked out. "I knew that."

With a cry of horror, Arthur staggered back. "No."

"I was the one who hurt you," Eames said, blood streaming down his face.

"God, no," Arthur said, his voice smaller than he could ever have imagined.

All at once Mal and Nash both were pulling at him, dragging him away from Eames who lay on the ground, still bleeding. Arthur's body felt limp and sluggish, no longer under his own control. His headache flared again and he submitted completely, allowing them to lead him away.

***

No memory replayed for Eames as he lay on the ground. He wasn't there, back in the moment, able to feel and reshape it. He merely thought of it.

Venice, of course. Two years in, they'd come here on Eames' insistence – or rather after Eames' incessant begging, pleading and eventual resort to blackmail. Arthur hated time off; the man would have worked himself to death without Eames' influence, the darling workaholic.

They were still there when they heard of Mal's death, when everything began to fall to pieces, but this was before any of that. This was the perfect day.

They'd walked together across the Piazza San Marco. The sun was setting and the buildings were aglow, everything golden as night began to fall. The red brick of the Campanile looked almost like a lighthouse or a torch, blazing out into the evening.

Eames wrapped his arms around Arthur from behind him, pressing his warmth all along Arthur's back. "Black plastic gondola?"

"Why do you only ever buy the tacky souvenirs?" Arthur wondered aloud. "Is it just your terrible taste or is it a deliberate campaign to annoy me?"

"That's only mostly true," Eames purred into his ear, nipping the lobe affectionately. "Besides, you're the one with no taste in art. I can't believe you don't want me to hang the de Hoogh in our flat."

Though Eames had not been able to see his face, he was certain that Arthur rolled his eyes. "It's not a de Hoogh, Eames, it's a Van Meegeren."

Eames huffed out a surprised burst of laughter. "I had no idea you knew that." He dropped a kiss onto Arthur's face again before pulling away slightly to take his hand.

"It didn't seem like your usual taste, so I looked into it." Arthur smiled a little. "One of the world's most successful forgers, of course you'd want one of his works."

"The man sold fakes to Nazis. I ask you, how is it possible to fail to admire such a character?"

"I didn't say I didn't admire the artist, I said it didn't go with the décor," Arthur said, but he was grinning now, wide enough that his dimples were showing.

"And if I want to hang the painting so that I'll feel at home?" Eames said with a winning smile.

At that Arthur could no longer hold in a laugh. "Fine. All right, fine." Arthur shook his head. "Couldn't you at least have stolen _Woman reading music_ instead of _Interior with Cardplayers_?"

"Not if I was to retain my artistic integrity," Eames said loftily.

Arthur pursed his lips. "So that part really was just to irritate me."

"Naturally." Eames dropped a kiss onto Arthur's mouth. "Always a worthy goal, which should be aspired to no matter what other tasks one is undertaking."

Arthur batted Eames away, though his dimples still betrayed him. It was warm though the day was sliding into evening. Eames insisted on stopping at every souvenir stand largely because he enjoyed Arthur's irritation.

By the fifth stand at which Eames had pulled out a selection of plastic tat for inspection, Arthur could no longer stifle a yawn.

"Bored?" Eames asked, amused.

"Very," said Arthur flatly. "One of the major incentives you set down for this trip was that we'd be able to spend more time in bed together and it's been at least eight hours."

Eames' smile widened, turning a little predatory. "All right, let me buy this…"

"Oh God, must you?" Arthur moaned.

"…and then we'll start heading back to the hotel," Eames concluded, ignoring him.

Arthur shook his head. "We're never going to Rome. You'd buy a gold plastic Vatican. Which would probably light up."

"You realise you're giving me ideas, yes?" Eames wondered aloud as he handed over his money for the ridiculous model. It had a silver gondolier posed in the act of rowing and a red plaque declaring _Venezia_ as though such a thing could possibly be from anywhere else on earth. "Shall we walk back?"

Arthur looked at Eames intently for a moment before reaching out to wrap his fingers around the back of Eames' neck and haul him into a kiss. It was the kind of kiss that Eames liked best, the prelude to a night of Arthur at his most open, his most accessible. Hungry and demanding and as close to uncontrolled as Arthur ever came without Eames working him up to it for hours.

Arthur mouthed his way up Eames' cheekbone to whisper in his ear, "Walk?"

When Eames opened his eyes Arthur was there in front of him, skin gold in the sunlight, brow smooth for once and his face open with longing. Eames' heart clenched in his chest. "All right, fine, we'll take a gondola back to the hotel," Eames said as though Arthur had suggested it, his voice as steady as he could manage. Arthur had almost wrecked him already.

"A gondola?" Arthur repeated in horror. "Eames, I know we're in Venice but did you really bring me here to act out every romantic cliché you could think of?"

"Essentially," Eames said, tone filled with manic cheer. "Besides, I bought a model of one. Seems a bit of a cheat if we don't actually go on one while we're here." Without giving Arthur the chance to say anything more, Eames began dragging him over to where the gondoliers waited. He expected an argument but Arthur didn't say another word until they were both in the boat.

"What did you say to the gondolier?" Arthur asked; his Italian was no better than his French.

Eames smiled. "I told him to keep his eyes forward."

"Presumptuous, Mr Eames," Arthur said, though his eyes were dark. "There are public indecency laws in Italy, after all."

And he wouldn't let Eames touch him for the whole of the gondola ride. Instead he went out of his way to be a wretched tease, rolling up his shirtsleeves, opening the collar of his shirt a few buttons, all the subtle little moves he knew damned fine drove Eames absolutely wild.

If Eames could spend his life in just one moment it wouldn't be the explosive sex afterwards, wouldn't be the relentless passion of the bedroom. It would be this: Arthur smiling at him and teasing him and showing him that he knew Eames belonged to him.

***

When Arthur finally stopped shaking, Mal and Nash were no longer paying him any mind, instead focused on some kind of argument.

"Eames opened the door," Mal was saying fiercely. "And Arthur was the one calling for me. You don't see what that means?"

"You can't encourage Arthur to follow us," Nash snapped back. "It's not time for him yet. I know you were always fascinated with it but it was a sickness, Mal, don't you see?"

"I know that what lies there is more real than what lies behind the other."

Arthur couldn't make any sense of it; his head was killing him and he groaned without meaning to.

Oddly it was Nash who went immediately to his side. "Arthur?"

"I'm all right," he said and it was the most transparent lie he had ever told.

"You wanted to do that," Mal said. "You wanted to hurt him; you've been dying to. That's the truth, Arthur. And you should accept reality, isn't that right, Nash?"

Nash glared. "Don't, Mal."

"But I've only just found myself," Mal returned. "You've had far longer."

Arthur couldn't think of a single thing to say except, "I didn't think he'd be able to forge down here."

Mal and Nash exchanged a look. "He shouldn't have been able to," Mal said, some unidentifiable emotion entering her tone. "Not unless he knew…"

"I told him," Nash said quietly.

Mal laughed, high-pitched and near hysterical. It ran down Arthur's spine like a file; it was a marker of sheer insanity, the kind of laugh Mal had only made near the end when she would scream things like _you don't realise you're dreaming_! "And then you left him alone?" she managed. "Oh, Nash, and you tell me I am cruel."

"I was distracted," he said defensively.

"You were as incompetent here as you were in your life," Mal snapped.

Arthur wished his head would stop pounding long enough to let him make sense of what was happening. "I don't understand."

At once Mal's demeanour shifted into something more motherly. "Of course you don't," she cooed, "but I can help you. Why don't the two of us take a walk?"

At once, Nash was squaring up to her. "No," he said flatly. "No, Mal, I know what you want…"

Mal laughed again and slapped Nash square across the face. Nash looked up at her in shock before some mixture of fear and loathing crossed his face and he leapt for her.

Arthur didn't know what was going on but he couldn't let Nash strike Mal; they were so close to him that even in his confused state he could kick Nash's knee out from under him without even having to stand.

Nash went down and Mal cried out in joy. "You see?" she crowed. "He doesn't want your help. Go, find Eames."

"Mal…" Nash tried. "Arthur, you have to see it, she's real now, she came back through the door –"

"Don't you touch her," Arthur snapped, forcing himself to his feet.

Nash's face contorted with some emotion Arthur couldn't read. "Fine," he said, standing. "I'll find Eames."

Arthur snarled again but then Mal was right in front of him.

"It's better if Nash goes – you must see that, do you not? You only need me, I am the one you called for, the one you brought here."

"Mal, I don't understand…" So many things that they overcrowded Arthur's brain. He began with the first: "You struck him. I never thought you were violent."

Mal smiled. "I'm your projection, aren't I? And you wanted to hurt Nash every bit as much as Eames so I did it because you no longer had the strength. But you, Arthur," she caught his face between her hands and Arthur jerked back a little at the shock of how cold she felt – strange, she'd been so warm before when she'd had her arms around him. "I would never hurt you," she said and placed a gentle kiss on his mouth.

Arthur was still wary but he was tired and in pain. He'd hurt Eames and he'd hurt himself and he had no reserves left to draw on.

"Follow me," Mal said. "I promise you, I will explain everything."

***

Arthur walked with Mal through what appeared to be a sea of his own memories, jumbled together. The campus of his college. The Champs-Elysees. Eames' flat in London, Arthur's apartment in New York. All of them empty, all of them calling to him.

But the images flashed through his mind anyway even as the memories stubbornly refused to come to life. London. Eames shouting at him, "Arthur, stop fiddling with your fucking cufflinks. Arthur, please, just look at me."

"It will be all right soon," Mal promised.

Paris. At a party with some people Arthur didn't know, friends of Eames' from his petty criminal days, one or two in the dream business. Watching Eames with that black African man and knowing, knowing.

Eames in bed with him in LA, laughing, loving him. Eames as the blonde in Fisher's dream and Arthur pressing his lips to Ariadne's out of desperation, loneliness, longing. Eames gambling in Monaco. Eames the first time they met, his build much more like Arthur's own. That 'first fuck' as Eames had so bluntly put it, in a hotel in Athens after a job which had helped to crash the Euro.

"We're nearly there," Mal said, taking Arthur's hand in hers.

And then at last, a black space with nothing in it but two doors, one black, one white. Arthur looked at them: the black solid and dependable, the white somehow unearthly. Something was very wrong with that door and Eames was standing right in front of it, studying it intently as though it was a forgery he was trying to see through.

"Eames," Arthur shouted, relief swelling within him.

Eames seemed to sag even as Arthur ran to him, leaving Mal behind. Arthur turned him around and ran his hands over Eames' unblemished face. "I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter," Eames said, trying to shrug but not quite managing it.

"Yes it does," Arthur said nervously. "I would never…"

"It was one of the most honest things you've done - well, ever," said Eames tiredly.

Arthur didn't know what to say to that.

"You knew," Eames went on. "And in my gut I knew it, but you never said anything. And when I tried- and you know I tried…"

"I wouldn't let you," Arthur acknowledged.

"You just straightened your fucking cufflinks," Eames said with a horrible choked laugh. "I hated you for that. So here we are: you saw Nash. It meant nothing."

Arthur nodded. "Nothing."

"But you know the other thing, too, I think." Eames said nothing else, let it hang there, waited.

Arthur's face twisted. "Nash wasn't the only one."

Eames studied Arthur's face for a long time before he finally said, "No. He wasn't."

"I tried to understand," Arthur began.

"No you didn't," Eames said flatly. "You said you never thought of going with Cobb as leaving me. But I did. You left me."

Arthur didn't want to respond, didn't want to make the admission but he could no longer deny the truth. "I left you," he confessed, begging forgiveness with all his heart.

Eames nodded. "I thought – I hoped you were coming back but I couldn't know for sure. I was waiting for you but I didn't know how long it would be, if you'd still be the same."

"You knew I had to go…" Arthur tried, but Eames was having none of that.

"Why didn't you take me with you?" he said simply.

"What?" Arthur stalled.

"When you ran off to get Cobb out of trouble, why didn't you take me with you?" Eames said.

Arthur swallowed hard. The truth, now. "I was afraid," he said and he could barely force the words through his throat. He could feel tears pricking at his eyes. "What losing Mal did to Dom – I couldn't stand it. The thought of that being you. I couldn't bear it."

"You didn't want to lose me? So you pushed me away?" Eames sounded faintly incredulous and Arthur couldn't blame him: put like that it was outright insane.

"You weren't there, Eames!" Arthur burst out. "There we were in Venice and everything was so perfect and then the bottom fell out of the whole damned world. I went to Dom, you went to Miles, fair enough. But Eames, it was like Dom was the one who'd died. The heart had gone right out of him." Arthur shook his head, fighting tears. "He stared at a blank wall for a week. I was afraid he'd lost his mind completely. The children – he barely even spoke to them. And I missed her, Eames, you know I loved her."

"I loved you, too of course," Mal interjected. "But you know in your heart the truth: Dom should have come with me."

Eames frowned and looked at her properly for the first time. "Something's different about you."

"Yes," Mal said, her eyes shining. Arthur felt his headache get worse. "Yes. It took me a long time to meet myself but now I have and we are together."

"That doesn't make sense," Eames said, frowning.

Mal ignored him. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" She was staring at the white door; Arthur realised that she had been doing so throughout his conversation with Eames. She was completely hypnotised. "It called to me for a long time. I knew that reality was through it even before I knew how to find it, where it would be. I thought that Dom and Phillipa and James would be there but Dom wouldn't come with me. He should have come with me." She turned to Eames. "Arthur should go with you."

"What? No!" Eames said at once, placing himself between Mal and Arthur as though afraid that she would attack him. "Mal, I won't let him."

Arthur felt sick. "Eames, don't you want me?"

Eames turned to look at him, stricken. "Arthur, of course I do, but I don't want you to die with me."

Arthur started. "What?"

"I can't get the black door to open," Eames said and he was trying to be gentle but his words were urgent. "I think I knew what it meant before Nash told me."

"I don't understand," Arthur said.

Eames tried to smile but his beautiful mouth wasn't cooperating. "Don’t you? Two doors out of this place where dreams meet death and I can only open one of them? My face, magically healed, when we both know that damage done in dreams lasts until you at least leave the level?"

Arthur shook his head. "No."

Eames reached out, lightly touched Arthur's head. "You're in pain and I feel fine. So what's the difference between us?" He let the back of his hand trail down Arthur's cheek and under his jaw, a gentle caress. "You know."

"No," Arthur said again but he did, he did know. The monstrous realisation was threatening to choke him but he knew.

"But Arthur, you're here," Mal said, her eyes alight. "You're here and you can go with him. Wouldn't that be simpler? You wanted to know how to be a lover – well here you are. You don't have to wait for the train, it's in front of you." Mal stepped forward, reaching out to trail her fingertips lovingly over the surface of the white door. "All you have to do is walk onto it."

"Mal, no –" Eames cried but then Mal was throwing open the door. Arthur reached out to grip Eames' shoulders even as Mal finally turned away from the door to hold out her hand to them. 

"Eames," she said with a wild happiness in her tone, "don't you hear the music?"

Arthur could hear something but it was like lightening through his head; it made his pain that bit more intense, set his teeth on edge.

"I hear it," Eames said quietly. "I hear it and it sounds like home but Mal, I won't drag Arthur down with me."

From over Eames' shoulder, Arthur could see Mal's expression turn ugly. "You're waiting for a train," she said insistently. "A train that will take you far away."

Eames began to push against Arthur, gently urging him away from the door. "Mal, I know I have to go through the door but…

"You know where you hope this train will take you," Mal went on, her eyes blazing, her body turning towards them in a motion more like a marionette than the movement of a human being. "You don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter."

Eames pushed harder. "Mal…"

"BECAUSE YOU'LL BE TOGETHER," Mal screamed and she lunged for Arthur, possessed completely by that one very simple idea. Arthur felt her nails tear into his flesh, felt Eames move to defend him. He was so weak, his head hurt so much but he gathered all his strength to hold onto Eames, trying to pull him away even as Mal seemed to give up on tugging for Arthur and instead grabbing Eames.

"Let go," Eames was shouting, at Mal, at Arthur, he didn't know. But he couldn’t, couldn't let it end like this and so he only held on tighter as Mal, with a strength she'd never had in life, tugged them both towards the door.

Then abruptly she grunted as she was struck from behind. Arthur could see a flash of dark hair – Nash – and then Mal was being dragged away screaming, "You have to be together! You have to be together!"

Somehow, Nash shoved her through the door and slammed it closed behind her.

The three of them looked at each other for a moment before Eames and Arthur collapsed to the floor.

***

Eames held Arthur for a long moment while they caught their breath; Nash sat in front of the door like a guard. Eames had asked him only, "Can she come back?"

"Only if you open the door," Nash had said and they'd left it at that.

Arthur was shaking more even than Eames, so to calm him, Eames had started whispering to him about Venice. "Remember, we rode the gondola back to the hotel, you teasing me all the way back to our hotel room. And you got me so wound up that I launched myself at you before the door was even properly closed and you laughed, light-hearted and so very alive. I stripped your expensive clothes from your skin. I always loved doing that, loved licking your angles and straight lines until you begged."

Arthur wasn't good at cuddling but he had come to enjoy being cuddled and he curled up into Eames' warmth.

"Love you," said Arthur. It slipped out perfectly naturally, as though it should have been that easy to say all along.

Eames kissed the top of his head and held him for another moment. "After Mal's death you never said it."

Arthur's eyes flew open before he registered than Eames was not letting go. "I pushed you away," Arthur said quietly, acknowledging his part in all this for the first time out loud.

Eames watched him for a moment. "The man in Paris. After you found out about…" Eames couldn't finish the sentence. "His name was Salatiel," he said instead. "He was Namibian. We'd met before, in Zanzibar."

"I didn't ask."

"No, you never asked," Eames said, still soft. "You never ask, you never say what you're thinking."

Arthur didn't know what to say. "Should have asked my lover the name of the man he was seeing behind my back?"

"At least I would have known you cared." Eames pressed another kiss to Arthur's brow. "At least I would have known you felt something! Arthur, you have no idea, do you, how damn hard it is to know what's going on in your head. You mystify me." Eames shook his head. "At the beginning it was why I wanted you, I think. You were like a puzzle I wanted to solve but I never could. After Venice I could never get close to you and I kept trying until I was exhausted. I couldn't do it, Arthur. I thought I could. I thought there was something romantic about it but I can't keep holding out my hand when all you ever do is bend back my fingers."

"If I made everything so hard, why not just leave?" Arthur said, heart heavy.

"Fuck you for asking me that," Eames said quietly but not bitterly. "Fuck you. I loved you. I always loved you."

"Past tense?" Arthur said.

Eames' face twisted. "Not the way you mean."

Arthur couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. He clutched Eames tighter. "Do you really have to go?"

This seemed to rouse Nash, who had diligently been pretending that he wasn't there. "I'm afraid he does."

"Why?" Arthur said, struggling out of Eames' arms. "Why can't I open the black door and take him with me?"

Nash's expression was unreadable. "Try it," he said.

Arthur frowned, but if there was even the slightest chance, he would take it. He stood, fighting the pain in his head all the while, and offered Eames his hand. Warily, Eames grasped it and followed Arthur to the black door.

Arthur reached for the doorknob, turned it. The door opened with no trouble. Arthur could see a blurry light, hear voices: "I don't know how they found us!" Dom was saying. "We have to get out, now." The pain in Arthur's head was worse, his knee hurt – had he been hit in the leg, too? But still, Arthur felt relief more than anything. He turned to smile at Eames, but Eames had fallen to his knees. 

He was bleeding from his abdomen, from his chest. His eyes were wild, panicked, he couldn’t seem to catch a breath. Blood poured down his body, pints of it appearing to soak his clothing to his skin.

"Eames!" Arthur went to his knees in front of him, trying to do something to stem the bleeding but Eames was soaked in his own blood, his eyes wild, he wasn't breathing, there was nothing Arthur could do, no, this couldn't be happening….

"Close the damn door," Nash snapped and with another desperate look at Eames, Arthur obeyed.

The second the door slammed shut Eames gasped as though he'd been underwater and was just now able to breathe again. Arthur reached for him, touched anywhere he could, shoulder, arm, anywhere without blood soaking into his clothes.

"Oh God it hurt," Eames gasped when he could manage to speak.

Arthur rounded on Nash. "Why did you tell me to do that?"

Nash's eyes were dull. "You had to know for certain that it couldn't be done. Eames knew that about you, so I did too."

Eames steadied himself and looked up at Nash. "So you are my projection?"

"Partly," Nash said. "When you first saw the door, the white door, you opened it. You were a lot of jumbled impulses but your unfinished business was making things right with Arthur – that was what you needed to deal with before you could move on. I was the catalyst, so I came out. Mal…" he shrugged. "Well, Mal had her own reasons. But one of you must have called for her or she wouldn't have had a projection to inhabit."

"So you are the real you?" Arthur asked, disbelieving. "You and Mal were ghosts?"

"Ghosts who took over your projections, yes," Nash said.

"Why?" Eames asked. "You said I called for you, but…"

"I wanted to come," Nash said quietly. "Please don't ask me why."

Arthur was fairly sure he could guess just from Nash's tone of voice.

"And now I have to go," Eames said, standing reluctantly, his strength back now that the door was closed. He walked back to the white door, looking at it with an expression somewhere between anguish and resolve.

"I want to go with you this time," Arthur whispered.

Eames shook his head. "Darling, no. Please, no."

"Eames, please," he said desperately. "Please, maybe this doesn't have to be…"

"Arthur," said Eames in a strangled tone. "I do not want to leave you. I've never wanted to leave you. I have just enough strength to face my fate like a man, but please, I need you to help me."

"Eames," Arthur said, one last plea forming but catching in his throat. All the things he'd bitten back for his own sake: he could hold this back for Eames.

"I have to go, Arthur," Eames said. "I knew it before Nash even said anything. I knew it. And I'd much rather it be me than you."

"But what about me?" said Arthur, hating himself for being so selfish. "What am I supposed to do without you?"

"Think of it this way, darling," Eames said, taking Arthur's hand. "Now we know that we'll definitely see each other again. Right?"

"Right," Arthur said, trying to take some comfort in the thought but unable to. They didn't really know what was behind the door – heaven or hell or something else entirely. There was no way to know that they would be together again. There was just the pain of loss, there already, waiting to flare into pure agony.

"I never loved you enough," Arthur burst out and then he was sobbing, clinging to Eames as he'd never dared before, arms as tight as he could manage, knowing that once he let go he would never hold Eames again. "It was always there, always inside me but I never showed you enough, I never gave you enough and…"

"Shh, shh, darling," Eames whispered back, raw desperation in his voice. "I knew. I did. I hurt you because I didn't trust what I knew and I'm so sorry."

"I love you," Arthur forced out.

"And I love you," Eames replied. "I always will."

Arthur pressed himself closer to Eames, as close as he could get.

"It's all right, darling," Eames said, pressing kisses to Arthur's face. "It's all right." He gently broke out of Arthur's hold, holding both of Arthur's hands in his, pressing a kiss to each. "I was afraid that you wouldn't understand that the forgeries – everything's a forgery," Eames said. "You kept wanting to know where they stop and they don't. I'm a chameleon, I always have been. But who I was when I was with you, that was real. I would have been anything to make you happy."

Arthur felt a sob rising in his throat. "I didn't want you to make me happy. I wanted _you_ to be happy."

"I was," Eames promised. "You made me very happy. And now to make me happy, I need you to live."

Arthur held on tighter, pressed himself more firmly against Eames. "You said I was a puzzle to you. I knew that. I was afraid that if you solved the puzzle you wouldn't want me anymore," Arthur said, bringing his final fear to light.

Eames chuckled. "I can't deny that something perverse in me wanted to deconstruct you," he said, "but it was always more than that." He pressed a kiss to Arthur's cheek. "Neither of us did very well at reassuring the other," he said sadly.

"I wish we could go back to Venice," Arthur said in a rush. "I wish I could do it all again."

Eames kissed him hard. "So do I, darling," he said fiercely. "So do I."

Nash cleared his throat. "Are you ready?" he asked.

Eames turned slightly and nodded.

"Won't she come back out? When you open the door?" Arthur said, a little desperately, hoping the moment could last just a little longer.

"She might try," Nash said. "You should go through the doors at the same time."

As slowly as he could, Arthur let Eames go and stepped up to the door. Eames did the same. They stood side by side, drinking in the last sight they would have of one another.

Arthur opened the door. Ariadne's voice above said, "We need to get out of here before the rest of them find us."

Arthur turned back to take one last look.

Eames was smiling, trying to smile. "Au revoir, darling," he said.

"Au revoir, Mr Eames," Arthur replied, trying to smile but feeling the expression flicker even as Eames' own face filled with a mixture of pain and longing and acceptance.

***

Arthur knows that once he's back up in the real world, after he's dealt with whatever the threat is, after he's had whatever injuries he's got seen to, he'll go back to the Paris apartment where there's a plastic gondola on the mantelpiece and a genuine Van Meegeren forgery in the hall. He knows the sight of these things will tear at him but he'll keep them for the rest of his life. He knows that he'll see Eames as a projection on any job he takes from now on, maybe see him in his natural dreams, should any ever come.

"I know you're not real," Arthur will say when Eames smiles at him, when he sees the same look on his face that is there in this last moment. He'll touch the projection's face, maybe, and allow himself to say, "But you were. And you will be."

For now, though, Arthur does the only thing he can: he whispers to Eames that he loves him one last time and he steps through the door.

~fin

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the beautiful [So This Is What it Feels Like](http://www.howareyoufeeling.co.uk/). Thieves at least one line from Puressence. Emergency prompts to overcome writer's block came from the Urban Decay Naked Eye Box. The title is from a quote I found attributed to Petrarch but I've seen no convincing sources confirming this so am happy to accept a correction.   
> Betaed by Cymonie, who continually inspires me to elevate my work. I love and love and love you


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